‘you’ve got so many qualities they may have been looking for’
Ninzi had started her work trial at the Time Park just one month before the Darkness fell. She’d almost felt guilty about it. Shouldn’t it be more difficult than that to get your first decent job? She’d only sent out… what, about three hundred CVs since finishing her latest degree? Some college kids her own age had sent out two or three times that many and were still ‘doing time’, either back for yet another degree, or kicking their heels in Community Service, wondering what to try next. But Ninzi had got lucky, and to make it even more miraculous, it was one of those wishful-thinking applications, the ones where you send off your CV thinking it’ll just get trashed without ever being opened. Not so. They had opened it.
The holler had come while Ninzi was at a café in Lagos with her friend from choir, Mai. They were soothing their voices with a long latte after rehearsal.
“Good morning, do I have the pleasure of speaking with Caterina Guarini?” A formal opening. He was dressed formally, too, in office clothes. Mai and Ninzi exchanged a look. There was no name or location on the holler image.
“Good afternoon, yes I am.” How do you ask another person their name, formally? “Who… ah, to who do… to whom do I have the pleasure of talk… ah, speaking?” Damn! She hated it when she gave away that English wasn’t her native language. It was frustrating, she never made mistakes when she wasn’t nervous.
“I’m Pedro Xu, of the Junior Human Resources team, Time Park Enterprises.”
Ninzi managed to keep calm, but Mai, who was out of the holler’s frame of sight, broke into a triumphant grin on her behalf, and gave a silent whoop of joy with a few air punches for good measure. The man in the holler went on.
“I’m pleased to inform you that you have been selected for a work trial beginning Monday, attached to the Historical Investments team. Do you accept the offer?”
Do I accept? Of course I accept! It’s the Time Park for God’s sake, it’s like a dream! She struggled to keep her composure.
“I would be delighted to accept.”
The man in the holler gave her one of those polite smiles people give when they are struggling to be professional through a wall of boredom.
“I’m afraid that phrase is legally ambiguous, can you just answer yes or no? Do you accept the offer?”
Ninzi took a deep breath and closed her eyes, not to be put off by Mai. Her friend had got up from the table and was doing a delighted little victory dance, attracting a few stares.
“Yes, I accept.”
“Excellent.” He glanced down at his bracelet, flicked his wrist a couple of times, and looked up again. “I’ve just sent you the contract, and details about your salary.” At the word ‘salary’, Mai’s face broke into an even broader grin, and stepped up the pace of her victory dance. “Should you have any queries or doubts about anything at all, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.”
“Ah, thank you. I’ll send you the signed contract back right away…”
The holler had already closed. Mai couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer.
“Girl, you’ve got yourself a paid position, and you’re not yet thirty!” She erupted. Their nearest fellow customers nodded when they heard this. Mai’s outlandish dance explained, they went back to their newspapers, their moodboards, their music. “I’m so happy for you, Ninzi,” she leaned across the table, took Ninzi’s head in her hands and kissed her, “this has really made my day!”
And it was true, Mai was the kind of person who just put herself into your shoes and felt your own feelings in the moment, better than you could for yourself. And right now, it was joy. If it had been the other way round, Ninzi would have been struggling with envy, frustration, and bitterness as her friend received the good news… Why couldn’t she just relax and celebrate? Why was her joy stained with a sense of guilt, a sense of… Not that she’d done anything wrong, “it’s just…” she tried to voice why she wasn’t whooping and dancing on the tables, “I feel like I haven’t earned it. I mean, why me? They must get hundreds, if not thousands of CVs every day. Why me?” When Mai rolled her eyes, Ninzi hastened to add: “Not that I’m complaining. I just feel a bit guilty.”
“Girl, you’ve got so many qualities they may have been looking for. Don’t even start speculating, it’s useless. They’ll tell you on the job.” That was hopeless advice, and they both knew it. Who could stop themselves from speculating about something like this? Sure enough, about half a second later: “What are your degrees, again, Ninzi?”
“History of philosophy… I knew I wanted to do it, I knew it would be tough, so I got it out of the way first, back in Italy…” Mai was nodding. She began sticking fingers in the air to keep count as Ninzi went along. “Then I did a two-year course on investment tools in Philadelphia. That’s another one I knew I wouldn’t enjoy, so I had to get it out of the way. Then I did Anabranch history in Mumbai, where we met, I wouldn’t have bothered sending them my CV if I hadn’t done that. You know the rest.”
“Psychology in Monterrey, and History of Music here in Lagos.” She finished ticking off her fingers. “Not a huge amount, not too little. Some odd combinations that might have helped.”
Mai stopped to think it over, draining the rest of her latte. Ninzi had carefully been making hers last as long as possible, she didn’t want to go back to her room by herself, she wanted to stay with her friend. But Mai had no intention of stopping there. Absent mindedly, still engrossed in her speculation, she went about ordering something else.
“Net, what’s the biggest calorie thing I can still order here?”
“You have already reached your limit.” Her bracelet told her. “You can order a glass of water.”
Mai rolled her eyes and slapped her hands down on the table. Ninzi giggled.
“It’s ok, I’ll get you something.”
“I don’t know how you get by on so little. I don’t want to be a parasite…”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t want to go home yet, anyway.”
“Oh, well… thank you.”
“Net, another latte for me.”
“On its way.” Came the reply.
Mai shook her head.
“How can you make it to this time of day with a latte’s worth of cals to spare? Anyway, I was thinking, you don’t have a lot of technical background, and I don’t think they’d take technical staff without experience anyway. The things they get up to are just too delicate. You must be going into customer relations, or communication. Or even the education team, that’s actually big business for them. You’ve done lots of history, and psychology along with it… the History of Music thing may tie back to Einstein, and the Beatles. That could be it.” Then her eyes widened, she theatrically put her hand to her chest, and her voice rose. “Hey, I didn’t even think of it, but your mother tongue is Italian.”
Ninzi glanced about, embarrassed.
“No, that may be an advantage…” Mai lowered her voice and leaned forward, articulating every syllable, “if you actually have to enter the Time Park.”
The latte arrived just then. The plate hovered still after Ninzi had taken it off. Lost in thought, she stared at it blankly for a while before glancing down at her almost-empty latte glass. So that was what it wanted.
“No, no, I’m still finishing it.”
The plate hovered away. Ninzi pushed the new latte over the table to her friend.
“That would be so amazing if you were right…” She breathed to Mai.
Her bracelet interrupted them.
“A document has arrived from Time Park Enterprises.”
“Let me see it.” Ninzi ordered. She caught Mai’s curious eyes through the gram when it appeared. “Let us see it.”
The gram of the document lowered down, flattened out, and swiveled around till they could both read it, like a moodboard. Silence fell while they examined it, broken only by the sound of Mai’s latte, which was really Ninzi’s, frothily shooting up its straw.
“There it is,” Mai pointed, “that’s the job description.”
Ninzi read it, almost unbelieving. It was just one sentence.
“Personal assistant to Mr Ferro Garbarin.” She looked up at Mai. “It just doesn’t say who he is, or what he does.” Uncertainty was flooding over her, and it showed on her face.
“What kind of name is that? The way you say it, it sounds Italian.”
“It is. Well, sort of. I mean, it’s not normally a name. It means ‘iron’, the metal. But there is another name, Ferruccio, which is like the diminutive of Ferro, like my name is a diminutive of Caterina. Well, sort of. Italians like diminutives.”
“Oh.” Mai paused in her latte suction. “Well. What do you think he does?”
“How should I know?”
“Are you going to sign?”
“I… Oh. I guess… I mean, how can I not sign? This is a once in a lifetime thing… Isn’t it?”
“You don’t look happy about it.”
“It’s just… I mean, it’s obvious. I wish the contract said what this guy does.”
“Well, it doesn’t.” Mai was very matter of fact. “You gonna sign?” She smiled encouragingly at her friend.
Ninzi took a deep breath. Then another. She tried to think it over carefully, but the truth was, her mind had gone blank. Mai was looking at her expectantly. Ninzi looked down. Mai was three years older than her, and had only ever had a quick, three-month placement as an unpaid intern, somewhere in Mongolia. She felt so guilty.
“Net, I’m going to write.”
“Ready.” Her bracelet replied.
Ninzi put her finger to the holographic paper, and signed.
“Net, you can send the contract back.”
Mai leaned across an shook Ninzi’s hand.
“You did the right thing. Go get your career.”
Ninzi nodded, then she muttered to herself. “I wish I knew what this Ferro Garbarin does.”